First Look: Girly Air Force

Premise

A mysterious, invincible air force called the Xi are terrorizing the skies of China. A boy and his friend escape to Japan and discovers a secret: the JSDF has developed sentient jet fighters capable of defeating the Xi. Oh and by the way, they have piloting devices that look like cute girls.​

Jel’s verdict: So when do we get the gacha game?

This was really dull until it got weird in the last few minutes. Basically things kick off with our main dude getting saved by a mysterious girl with super powers as many, many anime do. This time though, the girl is a fighter jet. I mean, like literally a fighter jet. It has something that looks like a human girl inside it, but apparently that is just the piloting mechanism. This fighter jet has taken a liking to our main character, so the end game for this series might be bangin’ a literal plane.

That is so bizarre that it might have been enough for me to watch another episode, but the rest of the setup is so dull that I don’t think it will be enough. A very significant portion of the episode was devoted to a sub plot about a girl the main character’s parents asked to look after him and functionally acts as his older sister. Since they’re not really siblings, maybe we’ll get a love triangle featuring her and the jet. More likely we’ll go full harem as there are other jet-girls to introduce, which kills any last bit of interest I had in this show.

​Gee’s verdict: Grounded

Girly Air Force might not be the worst thing I’ve ever watched, but it isn’t particularly interesting either. I’ll admit I honestly didn’t even know the show would actually focus on yet another bland self-insert male MC and his relationship with his jet wives. I had assumed it would be more of the kind of inoffensive cute girls doing cute things (in jets) fluff we’ve grown accustomed to over the years. Alas, it seems Girly Air Force is taking itself seriously enough to make it hard to get invested in. The characters aren’t particularly interesting and the setup itself is too contrived. It relies on the most tired trope of your anime waifu basically imprinting on the first male she sees as the foundation of their relationship. The jet action itself is CG which isn’t a death sentence in and of itself, but Girly Air Force doesn’t really do enough with those jets to really stoke the fires of my inner AceCombat/Area88 fan. All said and done, there isn’t really anything wrong with the show per se, but even in a season as weak as this one, it’s hard to get excited for it.

Our Magnificent Kotobuki first look is coming soon, but yes that’s basically how I come down on it. People are totally free to enjoy Girly Air Force, but when an anime features planes, those tend to be the main attraction for me.